Volcanoes and climate change

The eruption of the volcano under Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland is an example of what we can expect more of due to climate change and actually has a cooling effect, slightly counteracting climate change.

Volcanic eruptions have caused temporary cooling in the past – the ‘year without a summer‘, 1816, resulted from the sulfates thrown into the stratosphere by the Tambora eruption and the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 caused that year to be about 0.5 degrees cooler in the Northern Hemisphere. But these are just temporary effects and, anyway, this eruption is nowhere near the scale of those eruptions, too small for its sulfur dioxide output to have an effect. Eyjafjallajokull is emitting only 3,000 tons a day and compared to 17 million tons from Pinatubo.

So, Eyjafjallajokull is having a small positive impact on climate change. Interestingly, it is thought that that eruptions like this may become more frequent due to climate change.

Eyjafjallajokull is under a glacier. The modeling suggests that climate change will cause more volcanic eruptions as ice melts. Why? Because these are massive redistributions of weight. Removing the enormous weight of a glacier or ice cap makes the land beneath it rise. If the ice is on top of a volcano, that can increase stresses on the top of the magma chamber, making an eruption more likely.

Volcanologists say that the Eyjafjallajokull glacier (which means ‘island mountain glacier, if you’re wondering) is too light and has melted too little so far to have triggered this eruption but we can look forward to more volcanic eruptions in Iceland and other frigid and geologically active regions in the decades to come.

This is one of the few major natural negative feedbacks from climate change, where rising temperatures cause a reaction with a cooling effect. Unfortunately, its not likely to be anything like enough to make up for the positive feedback – warming effect – as rising temperature melt ice caps and glaciers, and the sun’s energy strikes less reflective surfaces like bare land and sea. And compared to human emissions, volcanoes’ effects are pretty minor.

Ironically, even as our greenhouse emissions warm the globe, melting ice, promoting volcanoes to release more cooling sulfur dioxide, we are emitting less of the stuff. Sulfur dioxide is a major ingredient in smog, we emit it from burning low quality oil and coal. During the second half of the twentieth century, the smog clouds over the industrialised world canceled out about half of the warming effect of our greenhouse emissions. But now we’re cleaning up, the smog is lessening, and there’s less to counteract the warming.

David, that is really illuminating. I had a look at your blog, could not quite work out if you are part of the journalism standard that you rail against OR if you are just in denial of reality.

As for volcanoes being set off by global warming the jury is out, however when I studied geology at Uni many eons ago it was a recognised and measured fact that Europe was still rising as a result of the removal of the weight of ice thousands of years previously. This may indicate that even if it does happen the process takes a bloody long time.

Everywhere a cold climate puts a steadying hand on the human heart and brain. It gives an autumn tinge to life. Among the folk of warmer lands eternal spring holds sway. National life and temperament have the buoyancy and thoughtlessness of childhood, its charm and its weakness. These distinctions and contrasts meet us everywhere. The southern Chinese, and especially the Cantonese, is more irresponsible and hot-blooded than the Celestial of the north, though the bitter struggle for existence in the over-crowded Kwangtung province has made him quite as industrious; but on his holidays he takes his pleasure in singing, gambling, and various forms of dissipation. […] Similar distinctions of climate and national temperament exist in the two sections of Germany. The contrast between the energetic, enterprising, self-contained Saxon of the Baltic lowland and the genial, spontaneous Bavarian or Swabian is conspicuous, though the only geographical advantage possessed by the latter is a warmer temperature attended by a sunnier sky. He contains in his blood a considerable infusion of the Alpine stock and is therefore racially differentiated from the northern Teuton, but this hardly accounts for the difference of temperament, because the same Alpine stock is plodding, earnest and rather stolid on the northern slope of the Alps, but in the warm air and sunshine of the southern slope, it abates these qualities and conforms more nearly to the Italian type of character. The North Italian, however, presents a striking contrast to the indolent, irresponsible, improvident citizens of Naples, Calabria and Sicily, who belong to the contrasted Mediterranean race, and have been longer subjected to the relaxing effects of sub-tropical heat. […] Transfer to the Tropics tends to relax the mental and moral fiber, induces indolence, self-indulgences and various excesses which lower the physical tone. The social control of public opinion in the new environment is weak, while temptation, due to both climatic and social causes, is peculiarly strong.

RL — yeah. Reread the passage, mentally substituting references to a warm climate for references to a society with a functional safety net (and the opposite) — that gives you a pretty passable rendition of the modern anti-welfarist argument.

Here is an interesting article in New Scientist that points to a very strong correlation between cold periods in Europe such as the little ice-age and reduced sunspot activity. The author suggests that Europe could be in for some more cold years.

Northwest Europe is a regional climatic abnormality largely caused by the strange shape of the Atlantic. It remains abnormally warm because of the Gulf Stream concentrates warm water northwards. But it is an region that is extraordinarily sensitive to minor changes in climate parameters from outside of the region (at least compared to the rest of the world).

For instance the abnormal warmth in the Arctic this northern winter pushing larger than usual cold-air masses into Europe…

The sunspot correlation has been known for quite some time. The most likely reason is that it affects the amount of warmth pushed into the Gulf Stream and transported northwards. The effect at the Caribbean is minor. The effect in Northwest Europe is immense….

The sunspot/cold winter in the EU hypothesis is that low solar activity affects stratospheric winds, and this has an impact on the incidence of “blocking” patterns over Western Europe. You need a big high pressure anchored over Scandinavia or thereabouts to prevent the normal warm westerlies reaching Britain. More at Nature News. Interestingly, it was persistent blocking to the east of NZ which caused last year’s cold winter.

Thanks Gareth. That is a interesting new study, and it is pretty plausible. I was aware of the correlation and the speculations on cause. Hadn’t thought about the uv implications in the stratosphere. Offhand it looks like there is enough adsorbed energy from the extra uv to drive the changes.

I wonder what the same effect does with the jetstreams around Antarctica

Yep, they are sporadic in nature though. At present we get a major eruption every few decades (this one isn’t one of those as Marty pointed out) and eruptions of this magnitude at least every few years.

What is unusual about this one is its position and the amount of fine ash it is pumping out.

Its position means that the ash cloud is going directly into one of the most crowded air-spaces world wide.

Normally most of the eruptions in Iceland are basaltic and don’t emit much ash and even that is pretty limited in duration. In NZ the most recent basaltic eruption was Rangitoto. Worldwide, probably the ongoing eruptions in Hawaii. However this one is andesitic..

UPDATE 2: Eruptions reader Hanns posted new compositional analysis of the ash from the explosive eruption. Most is ~57-58 wt% silica, which makes it andesitic overall. This is a change from the basaltic magma of the earlier fissure vent eruptions. The question is whether the change means that the basaltic magma is mixing and/or assimilation the rhyolitic crystal mush in the EyjafjallajÃ¶kull volcanic edifice, or something else is being tapped. The ash is fairly Ti and Fe rich as well, which might suggest a large component of the more primitive basalts from earlier in the eruption. Now we just need to get a hold of an actual chunk of the tephra to see the textures!

Those are more like White Island. Thats going to be a problem for Europe as they tend to go on for quite some time with punctuated explosions..

From what I’m reading, the ash is also looks unusually fine. That is likely to be because the explosive eruption tore through a bloody large chunk of ice. Extremely hot magma, high in silica mets frozen water and the resulting explosion leaves fragments of material that has major fractures and a very fine ash.

The Icelandic Met Office is heading up to the volcano to conduct a survey of the crater area to find out (1) what it looks like and (2) how much new water (i.e., ice) is there available for the erupting magma. More water is likely to mean more explosive eruptions in this phreatoplinian style – however, like I mentioned yesterday, the bulk andesitic composition of the ash implies it might have a decent ability to produce explosive eruptions without a lot of extra water (but it helps).

Hey Marty,
You said “and actually has a cooling effect, slightly counteracting climate change.” I’m confused, isn’t the cooling effect a change in climate in itself? Or by “climate change” do you mean Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW)? If you mean AGW would you please say AGW because a cooling of the planet due to a downturn in solar activity is by definition “Climate Change” as well.

You said “Volcanic eruptions also emit carbon dioxide” can you tell me how much we should tax Iceland for all the CO2 and other pollutants their Volcano is pouring into the atmosphere? Bear in mind that Iceland just voted to kick out the banks as well as Gordon Brown for bankrupting them so they probably don’t have much money.

ScienceDaily (June 26, 2008) â€” A research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has uncovered evidence of explosive volcanic eruptions deep beneath the ice-covered surface of the Arctic Ocean. Such violent eruptions of splintered, fragmented rock–known as pyroclastic deposits — were not thought possible at great ocean depths because of the intense weight and pressure of water and because of the composition of seafloor magma and rock.

The ScienceDaily article reports “that a tremendous blast of CO2 was released into the water column during the explosive eruption” – considering this, who should be paying all the carbon tax for all these CO2 events occuring from erupting undersea volcanos?

Actually can anybody tell me how many Volcanos are erupting under the sea? Does anybody know? If nobody know’s how many volcanic events are occuring around the world, how do we know how much CO2 is being released into the atmosphere and consequently how do we know what percentage of that CO2 is due to our labour? I thought the Science was Settled so surely the IPCC knows where every single volcano is on the planet and not only that the IPCC know’s how much CO2 is being released and the IPCC knows that all of the volcanic CO2 released by every volcano on the planet is inconsequential compared to our labour.

I guess the next time Ruapehu or White Island erupts all us Kiwi’s need to dig deep into our wallets and cough up for Nobel Peace laureate and all around good guy Al Gore, the UN and the IPCC.

The release of greenhouse gases from volcanoes annually on average is currently about 1/130 of the current annual release by humans from fossilized carbon.

There are some pretty good estimates of volcanic releases under water. You can read volcanic events with seismographs because they cause earthquakes. The gases from underwater volcanic events are adsorbed directly by the water unless they’re close to the surface, and are a lot less likely to cause issues in the atmosphere.

Quite simply volcanic events are not a major issue for gas induced climate change because their effects would normally get buffered. However they are likely to get more significant because humans have been shoving their emissions garbage into all of the buffers and are steadily clogging them up.

Perhaps you should learn some earth sciences if you’re concerned about these things? At present you look ignorant about the basics to me.

Hey lprent
you said “The release of greenhouse gases from volcanoes annually on average is currently about 1/130 of the current annual release by humans from fossilized carbon.” would you provide a citation for this estimate please.

You said “Perhaps you should learn some earth sciences if you’re concerned about these things? At present you look ignorant about the basics to me.”

Well I did ask the question. By the way, the ScienceDaily article referenced above comments:

“Are pyroclastic eruptions more common than we thought, or is there something special about the conditions along the Gakkel Ridge?” said Reves-Sohn. “That is our next question.”

The phrase “more common then we thought” suggests that there is a level of uncertainty in the settled science of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).

I am not asserting that the science is settled, neither did Galileo when he published his theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. The science was settled then too and the overwhelming majority supported the Vaticans view that the earth was the center of the universe.

Now please – citations to support your assertions please as we know baseless assertions can be disregarded as mere speculation and opinion.

Draco,
If you have nothing but logical fallacies (appeal to ridicule and ad hominem) to add to a discussion, I suggest you refrain. Your lack of tact speaks volumes for your character and your inability to hold an opposing view in a debate. There is a word in Maori to describe people like you in the context of oral debate – koretake.

The phrase “more common then we thought’ suggests that there is a level of uncertainty in the settled science of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW).

ctrl F provides a search function within a browser, using this we can then examine the body of the text of the article for instances of the word “climate”, in doing this we find no instances of “climate” within the article. Indeed, engaging in reading the article, it is easy to draw from it that it discusses only undersea volcanism, and to which the quote you use is directed at holes in our knowledge of undersea volcanism.

Which means that your conclusions post this quote is a rather perplexing since you fail to mention even elementary steps in logic required to link the quote to your conclusions, presenting an example of “jumping to conclusions”. Of course, looking at your previous post it’s clear you’re using the “volcanoes emit more CO2 than human sources”, which is somewhat strange since you haven’t actually gone and riffled through the literature for the actual papers on volcanic CO2 emissions, though admittedly the key words aren’t easy to generate. But none the less, a quick google brings up a rather good, referenced rebuttal, which includes the paper Morner & Etiope (2002) Carbon degassing from the lithosphere which goes over all the stuff you’d love to know about working out global estimates of volcanic CO2 emissions. Then there’s also working out the sources of CO2 in the atmosphere, for which if you even bother reading the linked to reference’s methodology sections it’s fairly clear how it is worked it out via isotope analysis and measuring the seasonal dip in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

However, back to quote I’ve taken from you, your conclusion, even taking into account your previous post, is still highly flawed, as you’ve failed to show any evidence supporting your claims, i.e. you should be showing us literature that provides evidence that volcanic CO2 emissions outweigh anthropogenic sources, let alone any serious flaws with the methodologies used.

Now to the FUN part /evil grin

I am not asserting that the science is settled, neither did Galileo when he published his theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. The science was settled then too and the overwhelming majority supported the Vaticans view that the earth was the center of the universe.

MEGA HISTORY FAIL, or how about reading up the history of Galileo, as from my history and philosophy of science lectures, it was pretty clear Galileo’s snarkiness in Dialogue Concerning the Chief Two World Systems drove the Catholic Church’s actions against him, and that comparing the public reaction of then to now, is incredibly stupid given the rather significant changes in public education etc that have occurred since the 17th century.

engaging in reading the article, it is easy to draw from it that it discusses only undersea volcanism

Read the rest of my comment – I’m only discussing undersea volcanos – but thank you for supporting my point – by the way, you can use ctrl-F to search the rest of my comment to prove it to yourself.

“volcanoes emit more CO2 than human sources’

So you say so yourself – this is an example of the “Straw Man” logical fallacy – but since you are describing what I said don’t let logical fallacies stop you. Use ctrl-F to read the rest of my comment and you will note that it pertains entirely to what we do and don’t know about CO2 emmissions from all sources. This comment used volcanos as an example as it is posted in an article about volcanos, you may have noticed this because that is the article I’m commenting on. If you read further down you’ll see other references to other CO2 emmissions and their consequences in other comments I made.

But back to the straw man – your comment here can also be disregarded as irrelevant.

Now to the FUN part /evil grin

More ad-hominem

MEGA HISTORY FAIL, or how about reading up the history of Galileo, as from my history and philosophy of science lectures, it was pretty clear Galileo’s snarkiness in Dialogue Concerning the Chief Two World Systems drove the Catholic Church’s actions against him, and that comparing the public reaction of then to now, is incredibly stupid given the rather significant changes in public education etc that have occurred since the 17th century.

How is this relevant? The point still stands – Galileo was placed in house arrest for having an opposing view to the “Settled Science”. You are not contesting this fact and you are well aware that it was the intention of the comment – consequently you are engaging in the logical fallacy “red herring”. Your comment is irrelevant and can be disregarded

So you say so yourself this is an example of the “Straw Man’ logical fallacy but since you are describing what I said don’t let logical fallacies stop you. Use ctrl-F to read the rest of my comment and you will note that it pertains entirely to what we do and don’t know about CO2 emmissions from all sources. This comment used volcanos as an example as it is posted in an article about volcanos, you may have noticed this because that is the article I’m commenting on. If you read further down you’ll see other references to other CO2 emmissions and their consequences in other comments I made.

Lawl wut?

The problem, is fairly easy to read between the lines of your post and see that what you’re implying is related to that canard, in fact you’re rather concerned with it in your comments, and haven’t actually presented any evidence from the peer reviewed literature on the topic at all, instead trying to weave together sources on under water eruptions to paint a picture of IPCC not paying attention to undersea volcanic emissions, where as it’s clear from a quick check that this is not the case, and we know the sources of atmospheric CO2 fairly well.

How is this relevant? The point still stands Galileo was placed in house arrest for having an opposing view to the “Settled Science’. You are not contesting this fact and you are well aware that it was the intention of the comment consequently you are engaging in the logical fallacy “red herring’. Your comment is irrelevant and can be disregarded
History father-f*cker, do you ken it?

Or more to point, do you understand the concept of what anachronism is and why it’s considered a stupid thing to make when looking at history?

Because if you don’t, then yes are going to see that part of my post irrelevant, because you’re going to fail to understand that comparing the 17th century socio-political and philosophical grounding directly towards the modern day ignores huge swathes of historical and current details involved with the changes from then till now, particularly in science and it’s relation to the rest of society. Without any given reason than it seems “just because” to create a historiography that suits your aims, in such a way that would have you heavily failed in a history essay/thesis. So, please, do tell, why is the historical details of Galileo’s situation completely irrelevant? Given you’re making an absolutely clear anachronism here.

Not only that, the entire point of that piece was to note that it wasn’t Galileo’s arguments as such, but the tone at which he put them in that caused his problems, an issue of tone that ironically you’re busy complaining about. But more so, how the hell the 17th century Catholic Church is somehow a good fit to the IPCC and scientific journals of the now is somewhat difficult to comprehend.

Thus, your argument it’s red herring when it’s pointing out issues with the historiography your using is somewhat dubious to put it politely.

… and begging the question. I made no such claim, however your comment about the syntax of my language is irrelevant – that point was made quite clear to you and the point still stands – Galileo’s assertions ran against the political environment of his time and Galileo suffered for it. The political importance of the Vatican in the 1600’s is compared to the United Nations and Wall Street today, as such the reference to Galileo in this context is also relevant – the “settled science” is politicised, just as Galileos Dialogues were politicised.

As for begging the question – you have assumed that I have questioned the relevance of Galileos historical context, as shown above this is not true, instead I called your ad-hominem and appeal to ridicule not to mention appeal to authority arguments about the “nature” of Galileos house arrest irrelevant – the point still stands and your comments are still irrelevant.

Also your ad-hominem and insults do not make your assertions any more correct. Tone Trolling, really. How is your reference to this relevant to anything – unless it’s another attempt at ad-hominem and appeal to ridicule. Grow up.

The political importance of the Vatican in the 1600’s is compared to the United Nations and Wall Street today, as such the reference to Galileo in this context is also relevant the “settled science’ is politicised, just as Galileos Dialogues were politicised.
Yay.

Could someone please care to highlight the social political, philosophical etc differences that make a direct comparison somewhat difficult, say the changes from natural philosophy to modern science, in terms of the role of religion within natural philosophy vs modern science? Because nzfp doesn’t seem to realise the influence these can have per all the lovely social science work done over the last half a century in terms of how people and groups process information…

Grow up

Welcome to the internet, please prepare to be goatse’d

As for begging the question you have assumed that I have questioned the relevance of Galileos historical context, as shown above this is not true, instead I called your ad-hominem and appeal to ridicule not to mention appeal to authority arguments about the “nature’ of Galileos house arrest irrelevant the point still stands and your comments are still irrelevant.

1) lawl wut

2) you clearly rejected, and continue to reject any historical details about Galileo’s house arrest and the background involved as superfluous, creating a clear anachronism.

3) Ad hominem is only a fallacy if it’s the primary argument used against someone, please note there are other arguments here, arguments you’ve failed to refute thus far…

Because educating yourself by checking over you claims on blogs and websites which discuss climate change by looking at the science and examining critically counter claims about the IPCC report and the literature on climate change is baaaad thing.

Question’s which are exactly like the one’s you’ve made.

And because I’m a biologist, there’s things about climate change that I don’t get, and thus will refer to these resources, because I understand that I can trust them, more so than anything out of Monckton et al’s mouths.

On March 9th, 2009 an internal Enivronmental Protection Agency (EPA) report titled ‘ Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act. By Alan Carlin NCEE/OPEI’ was released. The Executive Summary included the following points:

NickS you are guilty of the logical fallacies “Circular Reasoning” and “Begging the Question”. Your reference to “working out the sources of CO2 in the atmosphere” draws entirely from the IPCC. Consequently you are using as a source of the “settled science” the same science that is in question, the science is settled because the IPCC says so, the IPCC is correct because the IPCC says so. You can use this same argument to prove God exists by reading me the bible.

Except for the fact that it also has these lovely bluelinks to other peer-reviewed literature, and on top of that, please show that the IPCC report is flawed when it comes to it’s conclusions by linking to relevant scientific literature, i.e. are the IPCC’s conclusions at odds with the literature cited in the report when it comes to sources of atmospheric CO2?

Consequently you are using as a source of the “settled science’ the same science that is in question, the science is settled because the IPCC says so, the IPCC is correct because the IPCC says so. You can use this same argument to prove God exists by reading me the bible.

/groan

It’s like watching a high schooler stumbling into a evolutionary biology (or religion) forum and proclaiming evolution is teh wrongzors…

Nyet, I’m merely pointing towards the evidence thus far gathered, the onus is on you to show that the methods and conclusions thus reached are wrong, as to tar all the scientific work in the IPCC report with the same brush is the ye olde guilt by association fallacy

And yes, the IPCC reports are the high bible of teh evil climate conspiracy /rolleyes

Instead of a collection and synthesis of scientific research examining the cause(s) and consequences of observed increases in global surface and sea temperatures.

Then by all means, go forth and show us that the conclusions the IPCC draws from the scientific literature is wrong, otherwise give us scientific literature which shows the IPCC conclusions are wrong. Which you haven’t done, instead we get newspaper letters and articles, which aren’t known for scientific accuracy.

i.e. unless you show the IPCC report’s conclusions to be wrong, I’ll continue to draw on it, as it represents the key summary of the literature on climate change.

Are all your arguments logical fallacies? Are you a Sophist?

Hello loaded questions.

Actually, your entire post is nothing _but_ loaded questions.

And yes, I don’t mind paying tax, because the Randian alternative is inhumane, and I’m a student, so debt slavery comes with the student loan agreement (it’s down in the fine print somewhere…).

As of the best information I currently have, the GHG/CO2 hypothesis as to the cause of global warming, which this Draft TSD supports, is currently an invalid hypothesis from a scientific viewpoint because it fails a number of critical comparisons with available observable data. […] As Feynman (1975) has said failure to conform to real world data makes it necessary from a scientific viewpoint to revise the hypothesis or abandon it […] The failings are listed below in decreasing order of importance in my view:

2. Lack of observed constant humidity levels, a very important assumption of all the IPCC models, as CO2levels have risen (see Section 1.7).

3. The most reliable sets of global temperature data we have, using satellite microwave sounding units, show no appreciable temperature increases during the critical period 1978-1997, just when the surface station data show a pronounced rise (see Section 2.4). Satellite data after 1998 is also inconsistent with the GHG/CO2/AGW hypotheses

4. The models used by the IPCC do not take into account or show the most important ocean oscillations which clearly do affect global temperatures, namely, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, and the ENSO (Section 2.4). Leaving out any major potential causes for global warming from the analysis results in the likely misattribution of the effects of these oscillations to the GHGs/CO2 and hence is likely to overstate their importance as a cause for climate change.

5. The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility of indirect solar variability (Section 2.5), which if important would again be likely to have the effect of overstating the importance of GHGs/CO2.

6. The models and the IPCC ignored the possibility that there may be other significant natural effects on global temperatures that we do not yet understand (Section 2.4). This possibility invalidates their statements that one must assume anthropogenic sources in order to duplicate the temperature record. The 1998 spike in global temperatures is very difficult to explain in any other way (see Section 2.4).

7. Surface global temperature data may have been hopelessly corrupted by the urban heat island effect and other problems which may explain some portion of the warming that would otherwise be attributed to GHGs/CO2. In fact, the Draft TSD refers almost exclusively in Section 5 to surface rather than satellite data.

NickS,
You said “And yes, I don’t mind paying tax, because the Randian alternative is inhumane,” do you really think Ayn Rand and the Ludwig Von Mises – Austrian – school of economics is the only alternative?

Last comment for you tonight NickS, at the risk of cross posting, there are other alternatives to Ayn Rands economic theories. For a discussion on other alternatives have a look at a discussion I’m having with Rex and QTR on a tax bludger article post from yesterday – you can find the comments here

lprent,
I “quote” what I link to because it is relevant to the point I make. I diagree with your comment – people rarely read what is linked to and as such it is important to make the point clear and to support the point with a referenced quote – hence the request for citations.

However, this discussion is over – I can see you would rather pay “taxes” to financial CO2 derivative speculators (Blood and Gore, Enron and Ken Lay, the NZX) then dicuss true solutions that benefit all members of our society, our economy and our environment.

[lprent: You’re repeating the same quotes. Most of your quotes are out of context amongst the ones I’ve read. Your quotes overwhelm any of your own statements. I suspect the same is the case in your comments in other areas of interest. It makes it a pain for other people to read.

So I’ll remove the quotes, and let you attempt to persuade people to read the links in your own words. Quoting is the exception rather than the norm around here simply because you are expected to argue your opinions and why you formed them, rather than blathering on using someone elses words.

The IPCC is a consensus-based panel. The IPCC can’t say ANYTHING that isn’t UNANIMOUSLY agreed upon, and as a result it often understates the case on global warming.

If you have legitimate issues with the IPCC report, it should be easy for any honest scientist to perform an independent peer-reviewed study that points them out. There is an absence of that particular evidence for your position, so why is it even worth listening to? Come back when you have something for show and tell.

[…] Take the UN Science Advisory Group, the IPCC. In their reportwhich is a very good report, by the way which is close to 600 pages without an index, so no one really reads it except dedicated people like methere’s a five-page summary of the report that everyone reads, including politicians and the media. And if you look through the summary, you will find no mention of the fact that the weather satellite observations of the last twenty years show no global warming. In fact, a slight cooling. In fact, you will not even find satellites mentioned in the summary.

The IPCC admits in their 600 page report “the weather satellite observations of the last twenty years show no global warming’.

If you have legitimate issues with the IPCC report, it should be easy for any honest scientist to perform an independent peer-reviewed study that points them out. There is an absence of that particular evidence for your position, so why is it even worth listening to? Come back when you have something for show and tell.

Considering that the IPCC report clearly shows that the Earth is in a twenty year cooling trend I don’t have any problems with it.

What I do have a problem with is the requirement for the poor and middle classes to pay taxes for something that isn’t happeining. The poor and middle classes of New Zealand and the world don’t need another fascist tax for the benefit of wealthy elites – like Ken Lay of Enron (follow this link and watch the documentary) who set up Al Gores Cap-and-Trade system “Blood and Gore”

If you have legitimate issues with the IPCC report, it should be easy for any honest scientist to perform an independent peer-reviewed study that points them out. There is an absence of that particular evidence for your position, so why is it even worth listening to? Come back when you have something for show and tell.

Well what would happen if we ask for the RAW data to apply the methods of statistical analysis described by Phil Jones to reach the same conclusions about Global Warming he did ?

The academic at the centre of the â€˜Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change […] Professor Phil Jones […] director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit […] admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no â€˜statistically significant’ warming[…]

And

[…]

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

[…]

Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: â€˜There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be. […]

Seems you can’t peer review the work of the lead Climatologists of the IPCC. Does that scream fraud to you?

The IPCC admits in their 600 page report “the weather satellite observations of the last twenty years show no global warming’.

Interesting, as that was what Dr. S. Fred Singer said and not the IPCC. It’s also interesting to note that all the references to that particular piece of crap only appears on CCD websites. It doesn’t appear on the IPCC website which it would do if they admitted it.

Since the satellites now clearly show that the atmosphere is warming at around the rate predicted by the models, we will report on his no-doubt imminent proclamation of a new found faith in models as soon as we hear of it

oh, look at that, satellite readings show atmospheric warming. Yeah, the science was questioned, looked at and corrected.

I read the report – I admit I didn’t go into the details of the report (time withstanding) – have you? However a few things did grab my attention. You said “oh, look at that, satellite readings show atmospheric warming. Yeah, the science was questioned, looked at and corrected.”. So the data didn’t fit the model, so the data was “fixed” and it now fits the model

In the first Science Express paper, Mears et al produce a new assessment of the MSU 2LT record and show that one of the corrections applied to the UAH MSU 2LT record had been applied incorrectly, significantly underplaying the trend in the data. This mistake has been acknowledged by the UAH team who have already updated their data (version 5.2) so that it includes the fix.

You should read the comments at the bottom of your article too – it appears that not everyone is in agreement with the “settled Science”.

Draco,
Further to my comments above – your links have highlighted the important fact that the satellite debate is far from over. Your references are to studies published in 2005, consequent to those studies are other analysis on the datasets (2009). You can find the analysis here (09/10/16) a brief summary below:

[…] The differences are like night and day. Before 1992, the trends were similar as what I found previously. But after 1992, there is strong differential warming over South America, Africa (with some cold spots) and Australia. I’ll leave it to you discuss the specifics […]

[…] The red’s seem to follow continental shape, the trend difference between UAH and RSS is related to land area! This is amazing evidence that the difference between RSS and UAH is related post 1992 to land/sea daily temperature corrections rather than other potential problems […] No visible land/sea difference at all prior to AQUA. This means that the two satellite metrics were in reasonable agreement on how to correct for land/sea differential yet there is some slight difference by latitude. The AQUA station keeping difference demonstrates vividly above that both datasets were incorrect to the same degree for land/sea prior to the launch of AQUA. Now I’m not enough of an expert yet to correct the old pre-AQUA records for this problem yet, but this appears to be a clear problem in the entire satellite temperature record. There are many implications! […]

There also appears to be a drift between NOAA-14 (MSU) and NOAA-15(AMSU) for MSU2/AMSU5. The cause of this drift has not yet been determined. Global maps of the trend difference during the NOAA-14/NOAA-15 overlap period (1999-2005) show that the problem is greatest over wet tropical land regions, suggesting that the problem may be related to the diurnal cycle in precipitation or surface emission. Due to its smaller footprint size, AMSU may be more sensitive to the presence of precipitation than MSU. We are currently working to resolve this issue. Since we do not know whether the NOAA-14 or the NOAA-15 is closer to the truth, the data that we report includes the combined results of both satellites, and the difference between the two satellites is used to help estimate the uncertainty in the results.

Also Draco – is this your evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming and more importantly that a tax on human CO2 emmisions will resolve the issue?

Bear in mind that in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal, Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service had the following to say:

[…] When greenhouse contributions are listed by source, the relative overwhelming component of the natural greenhouse effect, is readily apparent.

From Table 4a [You will need to read the article to see the figures], both natural and man-made greenhouse contributions are illustrated in this chart, in gray and green, respectively. For clarity only the man-made (anthropogenic) contributions are labeled on the chart.

Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%). Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this.

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!

Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor). […]

[lprent: You’re starting to look like a rather tedious troll who doesn’t bother to debate or argue, but just dumps quotes on the site. Adding you to auto-moderation, and I’ll clean out ALL of your quotes (but leave links). Then we can see if you can actually argue coherently. ]

Ignorant: You appear to be under the misapprehension that instruments don’t have to be calibrated against each other. Different instruments measure differently, and they are always affected by extranous factors. I guess that you haven’t spent time in a lab.

And I see that you’re still quoting that old fool Singer again. He has managed to get himself a nice little extra pension as a mouthpiece for the industry funded climate change deniers group the Heartland Institute. But it hardly makes ANY thing he says credible.

NickS – you assert I am using the “Galileo Gambit”, how is this relevant to the discussion. You have to prove that I am wrong for your assertion to be correct. It is you that is asserting that the world is warming because of human activity – you need to prove your position – using circular reasoning such as references to the IPCC, Hadley CRU et al does not cut it. The onus of proof is upon the scientists who are unable to independently verify their findings – a la Phil Jones.

Given your so fallacy happy, this should come as somewhat of a surprise…

/shrug
Guess I’m just cynical

I am not asserting that the science is settled, neither did Galileo when he published his theory that the Earth revolved around the sun. The science was settled then too and the overwhelming majority supported the Vaticans view that the earth was the center of the universe.

Translation:
1) Galileo went against the settled “science” that the majority accepted
2) I’m against the settled science, that the majority accepted
3) therefore, I’m right

no.3 more rather well implied there, in fact it’s a highly logical conclusion to draw from that quote in terms of the rest of your posts, and thus given the structure of the argument, a clear Galileo Gambit.

1) Galileo went against the settled “science’ that the majority accepted
2) I’m against the settled science, that the majority accepted
3) therefore, I’m right

Actually no – this is an example of the straw man – I made no such argument. For a “Philosophy” student I’m surprised at your inability to grasp the concept of a “Straw Man”. The comaprison to Galileo is relevant – you probably haven’t read the comments above so I won’t repeat them. Needless to say read 20 April 2010 at 4:39 pm

Nick for your clarification – your point 3. is the problem – you said “no.3 more rather well implied there” – implies is the problem. Again as the definition of straw man you created the context and attacked it. I’ve already clarified my position above which makes your straw man irrelevant.

But get back to the facts NickS – how much should we tax Iceland for the CO2 emmissions of their volcano and who should pay for the CO2 emmissions of the other known and unknown volcanos?

But get back to the facts NickS how much should we tax Iceland for the CO2 emmissions of their volcano and who should pay for the CO2 emmissions of the other known and unknown volcanos?

lawl wut?

The current cap and trade schemes only relate to human caused CO2 (and equivalents) emissions, not natural CO2 emissions, such as those that stem from volcanic systems etc. So this question is entirely nonsensical.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

Oh I do, the question is do you understand the word “hypocrite”? Since you made absolutely no connection with the piece I quoted to any of my statements, making it your statement not a strawman, but a red herring.

I think your Straw Man focus on Galileo is a dodge there NickS. Lets get back to the facts and science eh.

Care to comment on the EPA?

On March 9th, 2009 an internal Enivronmental Protection Agency (EPA) report titled ‘ Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act. By Alan Carlin NCEE/OPEI’ was released.

Oh and while you’re at it – maybe you can explain why a TAX is the solution to environmental responsibility.

You assert “2) I’m against the settled science, that the majority accepted” this is also begging the question as you make the claim that “I” am against the “settled science”, however no such claim was made. Re-read the comments carefully – that’s what “ata panui” means.

Continuing down this path is in itself a straw man as it demonstrates you are unwilling to engage in the debate but would prefer to argue syntactics – consequently you are engaging in sophistry.

The current cap and trade schemes only relate to human caused CO2 (and equivalents) emissions, not natural CO2 emissions

You may be interested to know that in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal, Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service had the following to say:

[…] When greenhouse contributions are listed by source, the relative overwhelming component of the natural greenhouse effect, is readily apparent.

From Table 4a [You will need to read the article to see the figures], both natural and man-made greenhouse contributions are illustrated in this chart, in gray and green, respectively. For clarity only the man-made (anthropogenic) contributions are labeled on the chart.

Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%). Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this.

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!

Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor). […]

Lets highlight what’s important Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth’s greenhouse effect but yet you said:

The current cap and trade schemes only relate to human caused CO2 (and equivalents) emissions, not natural CO2 emissions

Governments have the sovereign right to create money and to lend it. The United Nations could assume that right as well, […] government-issued or U.N.-issued money could be used for sustainable energy projects without causing inflation, and this could be profitably done even by impoverished governments with weak legal structures and immature government accountability mechanisms.

Credit created by governments or the United Nations would have the advantage that it could be issued interest-free. Eliminating the cost of interest could cut production costs dramatically. Interest composes as much as 77% of the cost of capital-intensive goods […] the overall average cost of interest has been estimated at about half of everything we buy. If money for alternative energy projects were issued interest-free, projects that have been considered unsustainable because of the burden of interest could become not only self-sustaining but highly profitable for the funding governments. […] Interest-free credit could turn alternative energy proposals that would have been priced out of the private credit market into profitable venture

So what. If we were sitting with no atmosphere, then our temperature range would be the same as the moon. Heading towards towards absolute zero during the night and towards melting lead during the day.

It is the difference to how our biosphere operates and specifically how human civilization survives that is of interest. That only requires small changes to cause problems because of the current balanced nature of the climate systems and also of our agricultural systems feeding our population.

Fred Singer is an old fool who has acquired a niche for himself speaking for corporations. He hasn’t done any science in a long long time. Quoting him just means that you really haven’t done any research on the topic.

Go and learn some science… You really aren’t worth debating with, even if I wasn’t sick today. You simply don’t understand enough of the basics. Instead you just sprout meaningless quotes that you don’t even understand.

While you are teaching me how to google Nick, why don’t you google “Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act. By Alan Carlin NCEE/OPEI’ it was released March 2009.

Hey Nick, I just googled “Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act. By Alan Carlin NCEE/OPEI’ and the first link was from a site “Watts up with that”. I guess this is the “Watts” guy lprent spoke about.

lprent and Draco,
Would you also answer the questions posed in my comments:

1. Who should pay Icelands carbon bill for the volcano
2. Who should pay the carbon bills for all the other volcanos known or unknown around the world
3. Is Climate Change Anthropogenic Global Warming?
4. Does a cooling trend for the planet imply “climate change” as well?

While you’re at it could you answer the questions implied in your responses:

5. What evidence do you have that the volume of CO2 gas emitted by volcanos is “1/130″ of human emissions
6. What evidence do you have that Anthropogenic CO2 emissions is harmful to our ecosystem
7. What evidence do you have that the Earth is warming?

New Kind Of Undersea Eruption Defined: ‘Neptunian’ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) â€” Two Australian researchers have defined a newly recognized kind of explosive eruption, termed “neptunian,” that is restricted to seafloor volcanoes.

For the settled science of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) now redefined as Climate Change – but only huiman caused global warming climate change and not global planetary cooling climate change – there seem to be a lot of new “discoveries” in the Earth Sciences.

Science is never ‘settled’, and earth sciences have been changing and adapting to new data ever since I did my undergrad degree in it nearly 30 years ago.

However the probability of humans causing the majority of the observed climate change over the last century have been rising during the last 30 years. It was a hypothesis then, it is close to a certainty now.

Perhaps you should learn some science rather than relying on the ignorant ravings of Watts and others..

“The Science is Settled” is not my catch phrase – you know as well as I do that it is the catch phrase of the AGW adherents.

Again lprent – drop the ad hominem and personal insults and stick to the facts. Re-read my comments and you’ll find I’ve ventured nothing as rude!

you assert:

However the probability of humans causing the majority of the observed climate change over the last century have been rising during the last 30 years. It was a hypothesis then, it is close to a certainty now.

Well show me the evidence – I need citations, I need to see the evidence and we need to discuss it. We have opposing views on thie topic – that doesn’t mean you have to attack me personally for not agreeing with your opinion.

Who is Watts and who are the others?

By the way as for your references – if you can’t find an online reference – give me a book and I’ll look for it myself at one of our nations Universities.

I may be able to answer question 7, “7. What evidence do you have that the Earth is warming?” for you,. In an interview with PBS titled “What’s up with the weather: The Debate: Dr. S. Fred Singer “, Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service had the following to say:

[…] Take the UN Science Advisory Group, the IPCC. In their report–which is a very good report, by the way…which is close to 600 pages without an index, so no one really reads it except dedicated people like me–there’s a five-page summary of the report that everyone reads, including politicians and the media. And if you look through the summary, you will find no mention of the fact that the weather satellite observations of the last twenty years show no global warming. In fact, a slight cooling. In fact, you will not even find satellites mentioned in the summary.

The IPCC admits in their 600 page report “the weather satellite observations of the last twenty years show no global warming”.

I may be able to answer question 6, “6. What evidence do you have that Anthropogenic CO2 emissions is harmful to our ecosystem’ for you, In a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal, Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service had the following to say:

[…] When greenhouse contributions are listed by source, the relative overwhelming component of the natural greenhouse effect, is readily apparent.

From Table 4a [You will need to read the article to see the figures], both natural and man-made greenhouse contributions are illustrated in this chart, in gray and green, respectively. For clarity only the man-made (anthropogenic) contributions are labeled on the chart.

Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%). Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this.

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!

Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor). […]

The academic at the centre of the â€˜Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change […] Professor Phil Jones […] director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit […] admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no â€˜statistically significant’ warming […]

The rest of the passage said that there had been warming since 1995, however it didn’t fall within some confidence limit (probably 95%) that the cause was from anthropogenic induced global warming. Jones also said that it was close to that level of confidence.

What it meant was that there was slightly more than a 5% chance that the current warming was due to something other than human garbage dumping of CO2. But it was over 90% probability that it was.

You appear to be as ignorant of statistics at the reporter that wrote that stupid headline. Perhaps you should go and learn some basic maths. In the meantime perhaps you should read the full passage and find out what he actually said rather than what a gormless reporter misinterpreted it as.

lprent,
You said “Ignorant one” leave the ad hominem aside please and stick to the facts. The article also reported Jones as saying:

[…] Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

[…]

Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: â€˜There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be. […]

Would you care to show me the RAW data so that I may apply my own statistical analysis using the methods described by Jones to reach the same conclusions as Jones? Afterall this is the Scientific Method, unless the definition of the science is settled forbids the independent peer review process.

While you are at it would you please explain why the 600 page IPCC document shows “no mention of the fact that the weather satellite observations of the last twenty years show no global warming. In fact, a slight cooling”.

Also while you are explaining those – would you cite for me – specifically – where the rest of the passage it states:

however it didn’t fall within some confidence limit (probably 95%) that the cause was from anthropogenic induced global warming. Jones also said that it was close to that level of confidence

By the way – don’t just “pick and choose” which questions to answer – that is a logical fallacy known as composition.

Quite predictably on schedule the Icelandic natural disaster
Is attributed to global warming and/or climate change,
Or the latter’s rate is said to be increased by the former:
Of “Having one’s warming cake and eating it, too’, in the expected range.

Addendum….
(Can’t recall how natural disasters were evaluated
In the days before the Prophet (Al Gore)
(Ignoring his Harvard mentor’s negative evaluation of the thesis) took it upon himself
To see, for the globe, Mann-made warming in store!).

“You appear to be under the misapprehension that instruments don’t have to be calibrated against each other” That was the point I made in the comment nzfp: 21 April 2010 at 12:23 pm. However I’ve added to this in comments below.

“I see that you’re still quoting that old fool Singer” everything in this sentence represents Circumstantial ad Hominem (against singer) and Guilt By Association and is all irrelevant. The validity of a persons argument is not weighted by the company they keep – you may as well say his arguments are invalid because he’s white. But more importantly are you asserting that Singer is wrong to state “Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth’s greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%)”. Would you instead quote Wikipedia like Draco and NickS? I would hope you would quote Kiehl and Trenberth of the The National Center for Atmospheric Research which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation which has a great article about instruments which you should read that states “Current observational tools cannot account for roughly half of the heat that is believed [my emphasis because believe IS NOT a scientific term] to have built up on Earth in recent years”. Unfortunately debaters who link to wikipedia rarely – if ever – read the underlying documents or their supporting and contributing sources. In the article Trenberth himself states “[e]ither the satellite observations are incorrect, […] or, more likely, large amounts of heat are penetrating to regions that are not adequately measured”. Regardless of which of Trenberth’s propositions is true the fact is the science is not yet settled and so solutions proposed by AGW proponents such as Al Gore and his Blood and Gore CO2 derivatives trading scheme are not solutions to environmental responsibility that we should consider.

As for the sea levels are they really rising? Perhaps we can attribute Trenberths comments about Artic sea ice to a faulty sensor. Trenberths language could be described as alarmist at best, fallacious at worst which in turn brings into question everything else he and his co-author – Kiehl – who are referenced in wikipedia when they claim that Water Vapour “contributes 3672%” to the greenhouse effect (reference eight). So that begs the question – who is right, Trenberth and Kiehl or Singer (bear in mind Singer is white)?

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As Dyslexia week comes to a close, Dyslexia NZ have reminded us that around 10% of our citizens are dyslexic and are entitled to better support. One of their strongest arguments is that failure to provide identification and support for… ...

Today marks Race Relations Day in New Zealand. Race Relations Day coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The United Nations General Assembly chose this day as it marks the day in 1960 when 69 peaceful… ...

The knife-edge election in Israel complicates the Middle East situation, even more than usual. The Prime Minister-elect, Binyamin Netanyahu, is moving to form a government. Netanyahu has indicated that, during his term, a Palestinian state would not be established. That… ...

The Green Party has a vision of a liveable, accessible Christchurch with a sense of identity and strong connected communities. Instead, 2013 census figures released by Statistics New Zealand reveal a fractured community, and tell a story of frustrated Christchurch commuters… ...

The Green Party is calling on the New Zealand Super Fund to divest their $140 million investment in coal companies that are vulnerable to becoming financially stranded according to a damning new report from Oxford University. The Smith School of… ...

The adage about the first casualty of war being truth is one that might often be applied to the political battle for hearts and minds, and of course votes. A rather unfortunate example of this has been arriving in the… ...

Over the last few weeks I’ve been wondering how safe our income support system is for people, especially those with cognitive or learning disabilities. I’ve been trying to support a young man who was severely injured in a workplace accident… ...

Over the weekend thousands of Aucklanders flocked to celebrate our city’s diverse Pacific communities and cultures at the annual Pasifika festival and the Greens were there to join them. The Pasifika festival has been held every year for 23… ...

It was heartening to see a large number of people who care about the Marlborough Sounds come together at the Marlborough Marine Futures’ forum in Picton on March 8. Fellow Green MP Steffan Browning, who lives in Marlborough, and I… ...

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